Finally, he could not delay any longer. Everyone else was out of the building, and the robots were taking over. Metal treads spun along the corridors, bearing brooms, and the robot switchboards guarded the communications of the Ministry. Soon the char-robots would be bustling into this very office. He sighed and walked slowly out, down the empty halls where no human eye could see him waddling.
He stepped into his car, and as he opened the door the automatic recording said "Home, please," in his own voice. The car waited until he was settled and then accelerated gently, pointing for his apartment.
The recording had been an unavoidable but vicious measure of his own. He'd had to resort to it, for the temptation to drive to a terminal, to an airport, or rocket field, or railroad station—anywhere—had become excruciating.
The car stopped for a pedestrian light, and a sports model bounced jauntily to a stop beside it. The driver cocked an eyebrow at Marlowe and chuckled. "Say, Fatso, which one of you's the Buick?" Then the light changed, the car spurted away, and left Marlowe cringing.
He would not get an official car and protect himself with its license number. He would not be a coward. He would not!
His fingers shaking, he tore the film from another candy bar.
Marlowe huddled in his chair, the notebook clamped on one broad thigh by his heavy hand, his lips mumbling nervously while his pencil-point checked off meter.
"Dwell in aching discontent," he muttered. "No. Not that." He stared down at the floor, his eyes distant.